


and satisfaction

by phcbosz



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 19:54:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16729707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phcbosz/pseuds/phcbosz
Summary: It’s a curious thing, how much Negan still invades his mind even when he is not there, not even close to Rick. Because Rick is Negan’s even when Negan isn’t his.





	and satisfaction

They meet in hotel rooms because Rick has kids and Negan has roommates. He sometimes tells Rick that they are like little kids. Rick loves it when he does that. He rarely talks to Rick. They meet in hotel rooms and they don’t talk. It’s a rule, unspoken but known by both of them, and sometimes Rick feels like rules are meaningless anyways, but he has never been a brave man. Never when it’s about things like this.

Things like this. Rick doesn’t know how to refer to the thing they have got going on. So, he just calls it a thing. And it’s a thing. It’s everything. And it’s nothing, for him.

Rick’s watch beeps and when he looks he feels surprised to see that it has flown. Time always flies when he is with Negan. In their hotel room with his mouth on Rick’s body and their hearts beating together, time doesn’t even exist. Nor does space. Rick feels like he is floating in an empty blackness of nothing, with nothing, nothing, except him. And his sinful mouth that always says the worst things, and his hands that always bring the whiniest sounds out of Rick.

Carl is probably home by now. Rick wishes he could text him to ask but Rick can’t even bear thinking about Carl when he is in a hotel room. What would the boy say? Rick can’t bear to imagine it, but he does anyway. Carl doesn’t even know Rick is bisexual, let alone sleeping with a man, a young man, much younger than him, in secret, a whisper in the air, a painting that decorates dirty hotel rooms when the sun is down.

Carl is fifteen. That’s only eight years younger than Negan. Eight years is such a small time that Rick feels like it will go away if he blinks. He remembers the first time he held Judith. Then he blinked. She is eight now.

Twenty-two is a lot. It’s a big age gap. A huge one. A lifetime. More than a lifetime. The one time Rick brought it up, Negan told Rick not to worry about it. “I like older men,” he had said with his smirk and his lips and his half-lidded eyes, with his long hair falling on his face in stray curls, some of it tucked behind his ear, where Rick left hickies. “They always feel so guilty about it and I love fucking the guilt out of them.”

Then he kissed Rick, and kissing led to more, and he fucked the guilt out of Rick, until Rick couldn’t even remember his own name, nor Carl’s, only his. Negan, he had screamed, and it was a secret, for nobody else but Negan. It wasn’t a scream meant for Carl or Judith or Michonne or Maggie or who else might be disappointed in him for doing this. For coming apart in Negan’s hands. It was a scream meant for Negan only and Negan had taken it gratefully, and Negan had taken everything Rick has given him. Negan, Rick had screamed.

The guilt never stays away long enough, comes back after he leaves the hotel room and life continues on going and time starts again, and Rick always thinks about everything as he rides his car home. Everything is Negan. Jesus. Carl would be more than disappointed if he finds out. He would be disgusted.

Eight years. In some another universe, eight years later, a man in his mid-forties is fucking Carl into blacking out from pleasure and the thought makes bile rise in Rick’s throat. Technically, Negan can consent. Negan does consent. Carl can consent, in that different universe eight years later. But still, there is something wrong with it. Utterly, completely wrong.

Negan would spank Rick’s ass red if he hears him saying that, but it is the truth. Men in their mid-forties aren’t supposed to sleep with young men, young men with sparks in their eyes and youth in their smile, and a lifetime of years between them.

What kind of an example would he be setting for his kids? For Carl, who is young and just learning what sexuality means, Judith who is young and doesn’t even know what sexuality means. And what would his friends think of him? How could he be anything but a disgusting old man, how could he be anything but the man who fucked a ‘kid’?

“I can hear you thinking, Rick,” Negan’s voice breaks through the air and it is enough to make Rick suppress a shiver as the words reach him and vibrate through his body, right to his dick. Negan makes Rick feel like a teenager again, bringing all his desires that are hidden beneath the surface, for himself to see, for himself to caress and use it, and Negan uses Rick. It’s what he does, it’s what Rick wants.

Rick is very cliché, because isn’t that why all those married men sleep with the younger secretaries? Because they make them feel younger? Thank god Rick isn’t married, at least that’s one little thing he can be proud of. Like normal people feel proud that they aren’t cheating on their spouses. Like it’s not just being a decent human being.

Rick is not a decent human being. Negan jumps down the counter, long legs and bare feet padding on the tiled ground until he reaches Rick, one hand gently lifting his face up to make eye contact, and even Negan’s eyes are enough to catch Rick’s breath. Rick is not a decent human being, and Negan already has a hand down Rick’s pant. “That means I’m not doing a good enough job.”

“You’re not even doing anything,” Rick replies because it’s true, Negan has been just sitting on the counter, eating his apple, and now he has his hand inside Rick’s pants, but he isn’t doing anything, he just has his hand there. Negan likes having things in his hands even when he has no plans of doing anything with them.

“I’m giving you my sex eyes, Rick!” Negan fakes an offended expression, voice on the edge of disbelief, and Rick rolls his eyes. “See? This is how my face looks when I want to fuck you,” Negan’s face looks like it always does, arrogant smirk on plump lips, crease between his eyebrows and eyes dark brown, lidded with desire.

“That’s how your face always looks, Negan,” Rick says with a sigh and Negan raises his eyebrows up, licks his lips. A beat. “Oh.”

Negan chuckles. “So, what’s on your mind?”

“I thought you wanted to have sex, not talk about our feelings,” it’s a desperate attempt to change the topic, to distract Negan with sex, but it doesn’t work, it never works, because Rick’s doesn’t have Negan like Negan has him on ropes, a puppet on a string.

“Tell me what’s on your mind, Rick,” Negan plays Rick like he plays baseball. Rick has seen Negan play baseball. Negan plays good.

Negan plays this relationship like chess but looks like he doesn’t give even one fuck about it. He probably doesn’t. He probably just says the first thing that comes to his mind, and Rick thinks about what he meant by ‘tell me what’s on your mind’ for days, ponders his move as long as possible, tries to be clever, when all Negan meant was ‘tell me what’s on your mind’ and all he wants to do is fuck.

This relationship is nothing. For him. But it’s everything. For Rick.

So, he thinks about what he can say, he licks his lips and Negan leans even closer, and Negan is taller than Rick, so Rick has to look up to meet the man’s heavy gaze. He considers telling Negan what he really thinks but Negan gets mad when Rick brings the subject up, and he always grumbles about his dad, tell Rick just because he is old doesn’t mean he has to be an old man. Rick thinks Negan must know how he makes Rick feel by saying that, how much guilt he dumps on him, because Rick is an old man, and Negan is young.

And what if Negan gets sick of Rick’s ‘internalized homophobia’ and decides to be done with him forever? Find different men to fuck and to blush underneath him?

No, Rick can’t tell Negan. “Just a long day at work,” Rick lies and knows Negan won’t be able to tell because Negan can never tell anything about Rick except when he is aroused. Negan can tell very easily when Rick is aroused.

Negan hums and finally takes his hand out of Rick’s pants, and the spot where his hand was resting feels cold, and Rick misses the touch as soon as it leaves him. Then the man takes a step back, allowing Rick room to breathe, and it’s easier to think when Negan isn’t so close. He wonders if that’s why Negan stepped closer in the first place and if that’s why he put his hand on Rick’s skin just, so he could take it away and make Rick miss it. “Long day as in my friend got shot or—”

“No, no,” Rick interrupts before Negan can continue, putting his hands up for some reason he forgets, so he settles them on Negan’s torso instead. “Just, you know… Asshole coworkers.”

“I fucking feel you, Rick,” Negan shakes his head, eyes going distant as he remembers something about his day, and when the man makes eye contact again, he looks visible frustrated. Rick knows what ‘I feel you’ means, he can guess, but it’s just another example of the age gap between him and Negan, the lifetime. They don’t even speak the same language. Not really. “Simon was being an ass again.”

“I’m sure he will come around,” Rick says and then with a shrug, “He always does.”

“Yeah? Well I’m gonna be depraving him of my devilishly handsome looks for a few days at least. He really fucking pissed me off this time,” Negan rolls his eyes with a huff of a frustrated breath leaving his pulled down lips and meeting Rick’s face, like even remembering it makes him mad.

“Where are you gonna stay?” He can’t help but ask, concerned. Negan has friends. He has more than friends. He has girlfriends. Rick knows this. He still asks, concerned.

Negan’s eyebrows furrow in confusion, the little crease between them more apparent now. For a second, Rick wonders if he gave too much away if he allowed too much worry to slip into his voice. If it was too much. Too much everything. But Negan just shakes it off and smiles, and his smiles don’t look any better than his smirks, not really, because they both make Rick feel out of breath, but Rick likes his smiles more, for unknown reasons.

Then the man’s hand caresses Rick’s chin, trailing over to his ear, leaving feather light touches all the way there, and Rick feels out of depth. He is forty-five years old, and he has never felt more at someone’s mercy then Negan’s. There is much more intimacy in the touch when Negan tucks a wild curl behind Rick’s ear, and Negan never allows intimacy to slip into his touch unless he is too tired to care, or he had a fight with his dad. Negan is a professional. It only makes sense that he is doing this on purpose, but probably not because why would Negan need to play Rick? He has already won.

“I’m gonna stay with Sherry and Amber. It will be a great opportunity to get to know each other,” Negan’s waggles his eyebrows and his smile turns to a smirk in the blink of an eye, but Rick’s doesn’t even blink even though he wants to close his eyes, feels like he can’t bare to see the suggestiveness in Negan’s eyes or see his dimples deepen when joking about, talking about, thinking about someone who is not Rick.

“Why them?” Negan leans back a little, and searches Rick’s face for something, his smirk still there but almost as if it just belongs there, like it’s Negan’s normal face, the neutral curve of his lips upwards in an arrogant way, because Rick doesn’t believe that Negan is happy about the anger in his voice or the frown on his lips.

Something in the back of Rick’s mind wonders if Sherry or Amber or countless other names he has heard Negan say share the same fate with him. If they all stood in front of Negan with their heads held up high but knowing they have no chance to win. Because Negan is the best player out there, and he has all of their strings gripped tightly, and one pull is all it takes.

Negan pulls Rick closer with a hand on his waist and Rick stumbles forward until he falls into Negan’s chest and Negan smirks down on him, and Rick feels like Negan is always looking down on him, sometimes—always—sometimes. “I don’t know, Rick. Would you rather I stay with you?”

It’s harder to think with Negan this close and their noses are almost touching, and Rick’s legs feel like jelly, or something, and Rick feels like he would fall down if not for the tiniest bit of grip Negan still has on his waist.

Negan once got into an argument with his dad and left for two weeks, and Rick didn’t have Negan’s number back then, and he had a flip phone, so those two weeks were spent completely Negan-less. Right now, Rick doesn’t know if Negan will again just disappear with only a quick fuck as a goodbye. He also can’t fathom how much time two weeks is because inside the hotel room, time never exists, but he thinks, maybe, two weeks without Negan will feel like a lifetime.

“Yes,” Rick replies, not wanting to back down on this, because he is burning. With anger, or jealousy, or both, or maybe love at this point. It is stupid to stand up to Negan because Negan likes being in control and he likes pulling the strings, but he doesn’t like it when the puppet pulls back.

“Yeah? Well, I would love to meet your kids, Rick! You know I love playing daddy!” Negan does the eyebrow waggle again, and his voice is too enthusiastic, and his eyes are too cold, a cruelty in them that the man rarely reveals. Negan is sometimes cruel, and mostly an asshole. But you can never see it in his eyes. Rick must have really got on his nerves if the man is actually showing his hand, what he is playing.

Rick looks away sharply, and his eyes burn with shame, because he is weak like that. He has never been a strong man. Never when it comes to Negan.

And god, that is a low blow. That’s just down-right cruel. Because it’s Rick’s biggest worry and guilt, his kids, his age, and Negan plays both of those insecurities, and he keeps playing, and he never stops. Rick can’t catch up with the man and he feels out of breath from trying. “And maybe we will even host a fucking barbecue party, and you will introduce me to all your friends and we will make a damn great picture perfect happy family, a forty-year old man with his boy-toy that’s not actually his boy-toy—"

“I get it!” Rick snaps, looking at the ground because he can’t really look at Negan right now. He can’t. “I get it, Negan,” he repeats, lowering his voice and shifting from one foot to another. Their chests are still touching, and Rick can feel each angry breath that leaves Negan hit the side of his head.

“Then why the fuck are you jealous, Rick?” Negan wants Rick to look at him, Rick can tell, but he doesn’t want to look at Negan, and he won’t, he will resist, until Negan pulls.

When Negan pushes him back just slightly and turns his head, his grip is just right. Negan’s grip is always just the right amount of tight and Rick thinks it’s because Rick is like a bird in Negan’s hand, and if the man is too gentle, he might fly away, and if the man is too forceful, he will squeeze Rick to death.

Rick forces himself to make eye contact and keep it strong, because even though he wants to back down, give Negan back his idea of control, and just let the man fuck him, he can’t stop pushing. Because he is burning. And maybe, he wants Negan to burn too. For once at least. “You know when you asked me if I am yours?”

Rick remembers, and he hopes Negan does too. It was their first time, and Negan back then was only twenty-one, and he couldn’t even grow a beard, and he insisted on listening to music as they made out, and he teased Rick endlessly for having a flip phone. “You are mine,” Negan had said, as Rick writhed on the bed, just on the edge but unable to fall, because Negan wouldn’t move an inch, just resting inside Rick’s ass, hot and pulsing, and driving him insane. “Right, Rick?”

“Yours,” Rick panted, tears in his eyes, and the blurred picture of Negan on top of him with the harsh white lights of the hotel room blocked by the man’s torso, it looked divine, like Negan had come down from the heavens just to take Rick’s soul and paint it in sin. “Please—Negan, I can’t—just, please! Pleasepleaseplease—” Rick had prayed because he didn’t know what else to do, swimming on his pleasure and drowning in his desperation, moving on the bed desperately to get some friction.

Negan had gripped his waist, tight enough that Rick had found hand marks on it the next day, and he leaned down so that his breath was hot and wet against Rick’s ear. “Say it.”

And god whispered the right words in Rick’s ear, just like Negan whispered sin in his mind. “I’m yours, Negan! Only yours!” And it was the truth.

That night Rick had come so hard that he was pretty sure he fainted, and he had wondered if he even knew what sex was before Negan. And right now, Rick hopes Negan remembers because Rick always does.

“I do,” Negan sounds curious to where Rick is going with this.

“Yeah, well if I am yours, then you have to be mine,” Rick leans his face closer, using Negan’s own trick on him, hoping it will work. “Are you mine, Negan?”

Rick doesn’t know how long Negan stares at him because time doesn’t exist, but it feels like a lifetime. Negan rarely stares, and he never stares for too long, probably because he doesn’t care about what he will find if he does. Rick remember fantasizing about just gripping Negan’s chin and forcing the man to look at him, and Rick would stare back, and they would gaze at each other until Rick makes Negan understand. He wonders if Negan will understand now.

Then Negan shakes his head gently, as if clearing something away, shaking something out, and he doesn’t lean back but he feels more distant when their eyes meet again. “I am yours tonight, Rick,” Negan’s voice is low and quiet, almost a whisper, and it’s a secret he is sharing. “Isn’t that enough?”

It’s not enough. It’s never enough. There is a reason Rick never leaves the hotel room satisfied and that’s because he never has Negan the way he needs, and he never has Negan enough. Negan always satisfies him sexually but doesn’t give anything else except that. Rick will take it, of course he will, but is it enough? It’s not.

“You will belong to someone else tomorrow—”

“No, I won’t,” Negan shakes his head, frustrated, and Rick wonders what Negan is trying to tell him that he is not getting. “I don’t do that shit, Rick. I am not the type to belong to anyone.”

“But you are mine, right now?” It’s more of a question and Rick is honestly confused at this point, and they are still too close and it’s too much but. not. enough.

“Right now, yeah but I won’t be once I leave this hotel room and I won’t be somebody else’s either. I will only be yours, but only inside this hotel room,” Negan licks his lips, “Isn’t that enough?”

It’s probably not but in that moment, all Rick can feel is excitement and happiness because this is the most Negan has given him, all Negan has given him. And Rick’s heart is beating on the ground and he is still a puppet on a string, but he has some kind of strength. So, with Negan’s breaths falling heavily on his face and their hearts beating together to the music Negan had put on the first time they had sex, he says, “Say it.”

Negan looks shocked, like he can’t believe Rick actually had the courage. But it seems that Rick is braver than he had thought. “I’m yours, Rick,” Negan forces the words out through a clenched jaw, but Rick can read the expression on his face and Rick knows Negan’s arousal like the back of his hand. He wonders if he will be able to play with Negan’s desire, for the first time, because this night is all about firsts. “Now are you gonna sex me or what?”

Rick seals their lips together and it still feels magical and divine to kiss Negan because they have been sharing this kiss with their eyes since Negan sat on that stupid damn counter and started giving his best ‘fuck me’ look to Rick.

Negan rushes through it, in a way he doesn’t really do because Negan is always in control of everything he does, from the way he opens each button of Rick’s shirt slowly and teasing every bit of flesh he reveals. This is not that same Negan.

The man pulls and pulls until buttons come undone by force and one of them hits the wall and bounces off it, falling to the ground. Rick’s protest is muffled into Negan’s mouth. Something about Negan feels desperate even though Rick has been desperate under Negan’s hands before and it was nothing like this. Maybe this is as desperate as Negan can get, and it’s the most he will give Rick. And Rick will take it.

They don’t even make it to the bedroom, Negan just pushes and shoves and manhandles Rick until he is bended over the cheap hotel table, shirt thrown across the room and pants along with boxers down on his feet, tangled before Negan rips them off with force.

Negan uses the littlest amount of time he can to prep Rick, just enough so that he won’t hurt him, but he doesn’t take his sweet time fingering Rick’s spot just so he can have Rick writhing and begging underneath him. Desperate.

Rick moans out loudly when Negan enters him until he is balls deep, the sound of skin slapping against skin echoing in the room and carving itself into Rick’s mind. The man fucks harsh and fast, and the table rattles on the ground and hits harshly to the wall with each thrust, denting the cheap green paint on the wall and Rick feels like he is floating.

He has made love before, and he remember the satisfaction being the greatest thing he has ever felt back then, but that memory is foggy now, so Rick feels like he has never felt anything like this before Negan, because only Negan can play him like this.

Rick is close, so close that he is crying out loudly with each thrust of Negan’s hips and he feels like he is going insane, the need to come so intense that it brings tears to his eyes, like it always does. “N—Negan, please—oh—” Rick doesn’t even know why he is begging, it has just become a habit. He always begs Negan for something, even when he doesn’t do it with his words.

Negan, please let me come. Negan, please stay. Negan, please hold me. Negan, please love me. Negan, please.

Then Negan changes the position, flipping Rick on his back and Rick throws his legs around the men as best as he can, bodies sliding against each other, wet with sweat. When their lips crash, it’s awkward and just full of spit because they are both panting against each other while their tongues dance and Negan doesn’t slow down even a little, even gets faster, and it is no surprise that Rick comes as fast as he does, with how merciless Negan is being.

Rick all but screams into Negan’s bruising kiss as he comes, painting Negan’s white tight t-shirt with come, and god, Negan is still clothed, didn’t even bother to take of his clothes while Rick is naked as the day he was born.

“F—fuck!” Negan curses and then he comes too, with a few more lazy thrusts before he stops, slipping out of Rick while he rests his head on Rick’s shoulder.

Rick’s whole body is burning with how hot he is, and he is gonna be aching all over tomorrow, because he is too old for this. Negan lets go of his legs and they rest on the table, the cheap plastic cold against his skin. “God,” Rick whispers because it feels like the only thing that fits.

Negan chuckles, breathless and just a little bit giddy with post orgasm euphoria. “Yeah,” the man agrees and manages to throw the used condom in the trash and tuck himself back into his tight skinny jeans while Rick catches his breath.

“You made quite a mess,” Negan comments as he eyes the front of his t-shirt where it’s stained with Rick’s cum. Rick would blush if his face wasn’t already flushed. Then he takes off his t-shirt and Rick looks away because he sees hickies on Negan’s chest, hickies Rick hasn’t left on the man’s skin. And isn’t that like a sudden slap to the face? Negan is Rick’s now, but Rick will leave, and Negan will leave, and he will fuck somebody else just like he fucked Rick, and he will be somebody else’s even if he doesn’t say it.

“What time’s it?” Rick asks, mostly to himself, as he gets off the table with a wince, slipping his boxers on after checking his watch.

“Next time, I’m gonna rip one of your tight t-shirts apart, for revenge,” Rick jokes as he eyes his shirt with two buttons missing. He puts it on anyway, because he didn’t bring anything else to wear. That was a mistake.

“Don’t tease me, Rick,” Negan smirks and steps closer, and Rick knows the man is watching his ass as he leans down to pick up his pants. “We still have time, you know?”

“Yeah, no, I promised Carl—” Rick cuts himself off sharply, freezing in his spot with his pants clutched in his hands. He almost never mentions his kids because he can’t talk about them while the object of all his guilt is literally watching his ass. He blames it on his mind-blowing orgasm that he slipped up and hopes that Negan won’t notice.

And for some fucking reason, maybe because the universe hates Rick, Negan decides to notice, even though he can’t see Rick’s face.

“It’s because of him, isn’t it?” Negan asks, and there is nothing accusing in his voice, but Rick still tenses, not turning around and putting his pants on with his back turned to the man. “Why you feel so fucking guilty?”

“Yeah,” Rick agrees because what else can he do? It’s the truth. Rick will do anything for his kids, and his kids are everything—more than everything. Because everything exists in the universe and Carl and Judith are more than the universe. They are beyond everything, in a way. Beyond Negan. “I don’t want to set a bad example—”

“What bad example?” Negan interrupts with a huff, but this time he doesn’t sound angry. They had talked about this before. Rick doesn’t want to call it arguing because they didn’t really get to that stage. He mentioned his worry about their relationship and Negan shut it down and fucked everything out of him. “Being gay is not a fucking bad example, Rick.”

“It’s not that I’m fucking a man, Negan,” Rick turns around sharply, and Negan is staring at him with his arms crossed in front of his naked chest, a challenge in his eyes. “It’s that I am fucking a kid. I am getting fucked by a kid.”

“I’m not a fucking kid, I’m an adult. We are both consulting adults here.” Negan’s eyes are colder now, and harsher, and Rick braces himself for the cruelty that may come, that always comes when Negan is mad. And Negan is mad right now. “And you think it’s worse because you are getting fucked by me? Like taking it up at the ass is wrong? Well, guess what, dipshit, it doesn’t make you less of a man or any less of a decent human, just because you happen to enjoy anal sex. And your kid, what is he, fifteen? Well he will fucking get over it if he ends up getting traumatized because his daddy enjoys some dick in his ass, but I doubt he will care because teenagers never care about anything except getting their fucking dick wet, let alone worry about their dad’s sex life. No teenager wants to think about that shit, Rick.”

“What, are you saying I should just introduce you to him and hope he gets over it?”

“I am saying—” Negan stops, lowering his voice from a yell to a normal tone, “I am saying that there is nothing wrong with you. The same way there is nothing wrong with me. You aren’t perverted for finding me hot because I am devilishly handsome. You aren’t wrong for fucking a man—and I am a man, Rick, not a boy or a kid. And you aren’t wrong for taking it up at the ass—Jesus, I have fucked Sherry’s feet before, Rick, you are not the ‘worst’ out there. And the sooner you accept yourself and the things you love, the easier it will get to make people understand and accept you. Because guess what? It’s human to want to be accepted and want to be yourself, and it feels damn good to have people you care about support you in your healthy decisions!”

By the time his rant is over, Negan is standing directly in front of Rick, and Rick’s heart is doing flip flops in his chest. Rick has never thought Negan as someone wrong because Negan likes Rick, and fucks Rick. His mind argues that it’s not the same thing, because Negan is not the adult here, Rick is, he is the one responsible for putting an end to this relationship, but then other part of his mind whispers that technically, Negan is also an adult, an adult who can decide what’s good or bad for him. Rick is conflicted, and maybe he needs time to think about it.

His watch beeps just in that moment, and Rick jumps, looking away from Negan’s eyes to glance at it. “I’m gonna be late,” he says, taking a step back before walking away, a haste in his steps, an urgency to get away from Negan. “I will—I will call you.”

“I don—”

“I mean, I will text you,” Rick corrects himself because Negan doesn’t do phone calls. That’s an old man thing. And maybe there is nothing to write about the way Negan prefers texting and Rick prefers calling people. It doesn’t have to mean that they are not meant to be together and it doesn’t mean that this is wrong. It just means that they prefer different things. Maybe.

“You’re learning, Rick,” Negan teases after him and Rick flips him the bird before he leaves because it’s an inside joke between them because somehow Rick and Negan are close enough to have inside jokes.

The ride home he allows himself to think about Negan because once he is in his home with Carl next to him, he will only be his son’s. It’s a curious thing, how much Negan still invades his mind even when he is not there, not even close to Rick. Because Rick’s Negan’s even when Negan isn’t his.

FIN.


End file.
